


The Point Of Strangeness

by jazzfic



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-18
Updated: 2010-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-12 18:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/pseuds/jazzfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the scene: a silent room, one occupant not thinking at all, the other thinking way too much for someone who's entirely sane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Point Of Strangeness

This is the scene: a silent room, one occupant not thinking at all, the other thinking way too much for someone who's entirely sane. Or at least claims to be.

Penny's watching a movie. Well, she's trying to, but the sound's turned down, and it's not one of those things you can actually watch with the sound turned down, because it's just two people talking and driving, with absolutely nothing going on in the background except scenes of traffic rolling past on a loop. But she's tired, and can't really muster up the energy to move for the remote. So she keeps watching. Who knows, maybe they'll drive down a great big hole in the middle of what she assumes is supposed to be New York, or King Kong will plant one on the trunk and send them spinning.

Sheldon's not watching either. But for a very good reason: he's at his whiteboard, and he's been there for the last hour and a half.

All in all, nothing should come from this scene. Soon the others will be back and the rest of the evening can progress as it has progressed every other day.

It doesn't.

~

Half an hour passes. Now the credits are rolling.

Well, that was a perfect waste of two hours. She really needs to take up a hobby that involves, you know, movement. Maybe she should start jogging again. There's those little shorts in her bottom draw that she never wears because Kurt bought them so he could drool and be a jerk, but they're made of this silky material that makes her look all Nike cover girl, and it's not like the weather's been unkind...so, maybe.

Penny yawns, stretches her arms up over her head, and starts to hoist herself up so she can go get a drink, when she notices something odd.

Sheldon has stopped writing on his board.

There are two reasons for this: the first being that the board is absolutely full. Seriously, there are so many numbers and squiggles on there that she's surprised Sheldon can make head or tail of it. She's about to comment when she realises that not only has he stopped writing on his board, but he's--

"Sheldon?" Penny walks over carefully. "Sweetie...what are you doing?"

His arms are covered with black ink. In the mind of Sheldon Cooper, a full board has obviously meant go to town on your body, and it's...it looks...

Well, Penny's not sure _what_ it looks like.

The sleeves of his undershirt are all bunched up to his biceps. She can't remember the last time she's seen that much of his arms, clothed as he is daily in that indisputable Sheldon uniform of comic book brat who would probably look good in jeans and an oxford if he would only step out of his comfort zone once in a while. And no, it's not as if she's spent much _time_ thinking about Sheldon's clothes. But come on. Dressing up boys should be a god given right for the one girl living in a pack of genius nerds, if only they weren't...genius nerds. It's not as if Penny maybe sometimes thinks of that time she dragged Sheldon towards a black suit, practically pushed him into the change room, and experienced a small moment of revelation when he emerged complaining and awkward like he'd stepped out of his own skin, but looking svelte and lean and an entirely different Sheldon.

So no, it's not as if she thinks of those thing at all.

She tries again. "Sheldon? Do you need to, I don't know, rub off some of that--" she waves vaguely at the centre of the board, where he appears to have drawn a three dimensional box with arrows pointing out in all directions, "--um, some of that stuff so you can maybe have some more room?"

At this he turns to look at her. "Stuff?" he repeats, eyebrows raised. "Penny, that stuff is the bedrock of my higher cerebral functioning. Without it, this would make no sense at all."

And this is kind of the point where things become a bit strange. Where she should shrug and leave him to be all supergenius on his own. But he's looking at her and...she can't.

She has to lean in close so she can see where he's pointing--numbers, many numbers, scrawled down his inner arm like a numerical snake. She has to lean in and look, because he won't shift his gaze, and because it's kind of strange and beautiful, what he's done to his skin. It's so unlike Sheldon, but when he gets in this state of mind it's like he forgets his neurosis and compulsions and unravels, just a bit. She knows she should leave him alone.

The point of strangeness comes and goes like it's got cops on its tail. It's a metaphor she wants to live out, throw reason to the wind and just go with the crazy. Penny stares back, stares at him for a long beat. "Oh, really?" she says. And very slowly, she reaches across and takes the marker from his hand.

~

This is the scene: a silent room, one occupant not thinking at all, the other thinking way too much for someone who's entirely sane. And if she maybe goes to the door and turns the lock, well, that's just something she's going to have to ruminate about down the line. Or in another lifetime. And the following almost certainly doesn't happen.

Penny unbuttoning her blouse, pulling her hair over one shoulder, waiting. Standing flush against the whiteboard as Sheldon calculates pi across the small of her back.

Penny pulling at the collar of his tee shirt, red cotton scrunched in her fingers, feeling him stand entirely still, until her lips touch his collarbone.

No sound but the scratch of marker tip to skin.

She's waiting for him to snap out of it, revert to default Sheldon, make a beeline for the shower and disinfectant, blame the fumes and an overtaxed mind unable to cope with an unsolvable problem. Maybe she's been waiting for all this time without realising how in the years she's suffered his overbearing arrogance, he's been slowly changing around her.

She can't be sure. But she knows it not entirely unpleasant, this thing that almost certainly didn't happen, in a room with the television on and the sound turned down.


End file.
